


never want to go home because i haven't got one anymore

by cosmicpoet



Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: Alternate Universe - Non-Despair (Dangan Ronpa), F/M, M/M, Soulmate AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-18
Updated: 2017-12-18
Packaged: 2019-02-16 15:19:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,889
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13056678
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cosmicpoet/pseuds/cosmicpoet
Summary: Soulmate AU: When your soulmate dies, you feel the pain of their death as if it were happening to you. Shuichi is home, alone, when suddenly he feels like he is dying - or at least, the most important part of him is dying.





	never want to go home because i haven't got one anymore

Shuichi stirs in his sleep; something restless and foreign inside him causes his stomach to contort within his skin. It’s almost as if there’s an object stuck beneath layers of muscle, right down to the bone, vibrating and burning from the inside outwards. The shock of this jolts him from a liminal, half-sleep state to a fully awake one, like he’s in a car that has just crashed, snapping his seatbelt against his ribcage and making it impossible for him to breathe.

Except, he isn’t in a car. He’s slumped on his crossed arms, having just been asleep on his desk. Surrounded by open case files and uncapped pens, he knows that he must have fallen asleep whilst working. But he can’t concentrate on where he left off, not when he feels like he’s having a heart attack. There’s still something so wrong, something so _painful;_ a crippling, pulsating wave inside him, rocking him with pain and desperate fire. Falling to the floor, he gasps for breath, finding nothing but the hot, terrible agony of breathing smoke. His phone is only a metre away from him, but it feels like forever, when every inch he moves tears more of his skin apart.

It takes him five whole minutes to cover a distance that would normally take him less than a second. His body is almost paralysed; hyper-aware of the cold, wooden floor on his burning stomach. When he reaches his phone, he debates calling Kaede or an ambulance - there’s a doubt in his mind as to what _exactly_ is happening to him. Sure, he could be having a heart attack; he’d _rather_ be having a heart attack, because the other possibility is so much worse. He’s thinking of this when he makes the decision to call Kaede.

Shuichi manages to unlock his phone, before passing out on the floor.

He wakes to the sound of knocking on his door. His eyes are heavy; his body weak. The pain, however, has subsided, leaving only the feeling of a ghost inside him - like something has been scooped out of his body, and he’s feeling the aftermath of something having left. This feeling, more than any of the pain he felt previously, terrifies him. Unsure if he can move, Shuichi tenderly pushes himself up into a sitting position, testing the waters of his pain threshold. When this doesn’t cause him a significant amount of discomfort, he pulls his legs, heavy and shaking, beneath him and, eventually, stands up. The knocking does not subside. With each beat, Shuichi hears a melody in his head, some distant piano music punctuated by the hollow metronome of a stranger at his door.

When he answers, he finds a police officer.

The rest is a blur in real-time. One moment, he’s standing motionless at his own front door, the next, he’s sat on his own sofa, holding a cup of tea in his own mug, made by a man in a uniform whom he can’t remember the name of. He’s just trying to compartmentalise what’s happening without letting himself accept reality. It’s two in the morning, and when everyone else in the neighbourhood is asleep in bed, he’s shaking his head and letting tears fall.

“I’m sorry,” the officer says, “but they couldn’t revive her.”

“I-I don’t know what happened. I couldn’t hear, I’m…I’m sorry.”

“That’s natural. You blocked out the past ten minutes because your brain didn’t want to hear it.”

“So she’s…dead? Kaede is dead?”

“I’m sorry, sir.”

“But she was just here! She left this evening…she was going to be back!”

“I’m sorry. She was at a bar…”

“Yeah, s-she plays piano there.”

“There was a shooting. A gunman came in and opened fire on, well, everyone. Witness testimony tells us that she died using her body as a shield. She saved the lives of an elderly couple.”

“But she’s,” Shuichi can’t bring himself to finish that sentence. Saying the word _dead_ makes it real; that Kaede really is gone. That’s not something he’ll ever be able to confront.

“I’m sorry, sir. Really, my deepest condolences. Is there anyone we can call for you?”

Shuichi goes numb. His entire body becomes overtaken by a cold, grey mass that starts from his stomach and spreads outwards, reaching spider-web tendrils up and around every atom of him. He feels the absence of Kaede with every shuddering breath he takes, living forever in a reminder of how he felt her dying pain and didn’t do anything. If only he’d called an ambulance and told them where she was, if only he’d come to see her perform instead of working late, if only it had been her who felt the pain of his death, rather than the other way around.

“Sir? Is there anyone we can call?”

“Uh…Kaito. Call him. He’ll know what to do.”

Shuichi recites the number methodically, off by heart, without even realising that he’s doing it. Nothing right now feels real, he’s stuck horribly in a colourless bubble, images of Kaede running through his head. He remembers how she would play piano for him, their glasses of wine resting on the top of her piano as he sat next to her and became mesmerised by her hands. And now, he’ll never be able to hear music again. Everything good has gone from the world.

The next time there’s a knock on the door, Shuichi remembers what happened last time and immediately curls into himself. In between shaky breaths, he sobs and scratches at his face, pulling at his hair and digging his nails into any inch of flesh he can find, just so that he can feel something other than _grief._ He vaguely registers the sound of the officer opening the door, and then Kaito is beside him, his hand on Shuichi’s shoulder.

“I’m sorry,” Kaito says, “can you stand?”

Shuichi shakes his head.

“The officer told me that you shouldn’t be alone tonight. And this is, well, this place probably reminds you a lot of her.”

Shuichi nods.

“So come with me. Stay at mine.”

Shuichi nods again. Words, currently, are lost to him.

Kaito tries to help him out of his curled-up sitting position, but Shuichi crumples at every opportunity. Eventually, after multiple attempts, Kaito simply picks Shuichi up, biting back tears when Shuichi instinctively turns into him and drags his knees up to his chest, like he wants to make himself small enough to disappear. It’s easy enough for Kaito to carry someone so small, and Shuichi seems to have no fight left in him; he just gives up, becomes dead-weight, and lets himself be carried to Kaito’s car.

* * *

 

It’s morning by the time Shuichi wakes up. He’s alone in a double bed, but not the one in his apartment - he recognises it as belonging to Kaito and Maki. Softly, he moves his legs over the edge of the bed and stands up. He feels like he can’t ever be rid of Kaede’s dying moments.

Running a shaking, tentative hand over his heart, he feels around to see if he can imagine a bullet wound; how it would feel to have a permanent scar named _‘lover’._ He quickly backtracks from this thought, gently pacing towards the kitchen to get a change of scene.

There, he finds Kaito, sleeping on the sofa in the living room that follows on from the kitchen, and Maki, making coffee by the countertop. He rubs his eyes and looks at her, hoping that she’ll be able to say something - _anything_ \- to distract him.

“Hey,” she says, “how’d you sleep?”

“Uh…okay.”

“Kaito brought you over last night. He told me everything. He brought some of your clothes, too, so you can stay with us for as long as you need.”

“Where did you sleep?”

“I didn’t. When you and Kaito got in, I couldn’t get back to sleep, so I’ve just been…waiting.”

“Oh.”

Maki puts a cup of coffee on the counter next to Shuichi.

“I’ll go and wake Kaito,” she says.

When Kaito rouses from sleep, he joins Shuichi and Maki in the kitchen. There’s an uncomfortable, unfamiliar silence that hangs in the air, as if a missing fourth person from their friendship group is still lingering like a ghost.

“Bro,” Kaito says, “how you holding up?”

“I…can’t believe it.”

“I know. Me neither. But don’t let it destroy you from the inside out. That’s not what she’d want.”

“She can’t want _anything!_ She’s dead, Kaito! Gone. And I felt it. I felt it and I did _nothing._ I could have called an ambulance, and I _didn’t!_ I let her die. So don’t tell me that I can’t let it destroy me when it’s _my fault she’s dead.”_

“Shuichi…”

Kaito can’t even finish his sentence before Shuichi runs out of the kitchen. He’s running, out of the door, down the stairs, out of the door of the apartment block, down the street. He only stops after ten minutes, when his lungs are burning and his eyes are clouded with tears.

Feeling for his wallet in his pocket, he’s glad to find it there as he walks into a small shop on the corner of a street he doesn’t recognise. Kaede hated smoking, so he quit years ago for her, but he can’t find a good enough reason not to indulge himself just this once. It always helped his anxiety in the past, and right now is a time when he’ll take anything he can get to feel better. No, not _feel better,_ but anything to stop his mind from racing through thoughts of stepping out into the road with his eyes closed, wondering if Kaede’s spirit would feel the pain of being hit by a car.

He’s half way through chain-smoking a full packet of cigarettes when Kaito’s car pulls up by the kerb next to him. At first, Shuichi doesn’t even register that there’s someone beside him until Kaito is lighting up too, sitting next to him with the engine of his car still running. Together, they rest on the kerb; Kaito’s arm around Shuichi’s shoulders, both crying.

“Sorry about before, y’know, if I seemed insensitive,” Kaito says.

“No, it’s fine, I…I’m just not doing great.”

“None of us are. But yeah, you most of all. She was your girlfriend.”

Shuichi lifts his head and looks at Kaito.

“I’m never going to be happy again.”

“That’s not true,” Kaito says, “or, well, it might be. But I’m not gonna let you give up just like that. Come on, let me take you back.”

Shuichi nods.

Instead of going back to Kaito and Maki’s apartment, they drive to Shuichi’s place; the place he used to share with Kaede. Gently, Kaito takes him inside, and they sit by Kaede’s piano in complete silence. After a while, Kaito gets up, opens the curtains and windows, and tries to get Shuichi to start viewing the place as somewhere filled with happy memories, rather than the scene of a painful crime.

In the distance, just outside the open window of Shuichi’s office, an ice cream truck drives by, playing _Clair de Lune._ They both close their eyes and imagine a scenario in which they’re no longer both alone; and for a moment, this lie becomes a truth they can find comfort in.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you liked this! It ended up being different plot-wise to how I initially planned it, but that's just how writing goes! Leave a comment if you enjoyed, I really love reading them.
> 
> Title from 'There Is A Light That Never Goes Out' by The Smiths.


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